


Deus Ex Machina, or Percy Jackson's Guide to Pissing Off the Gods and Saving Your Friends.

by teardropsandfiresparks



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, probably will never update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 21:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17836541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teardropsandfiresparks/pseuds/teardropsandfiresparks
Summary: "...save them. As many as you can. Save everyone from the war who didn’t deserve to die."When an unexpected visitor from beyond the shroud offers Percy a chance to go back in time and change his past, he takes it.(Duh.)But when what seems like a simple task becomes much more complicated than expected(as if anything has ever been simple for him),he quickly realizes there is much more to time travel than meets the eye.Like, for instance, figuring out how to hide the fact that you're from the future from your friends, family, andextendedfamily.And then, as if if that wasn't hard enough,trying to hide it from thefates themselves.Good luck seaweed brain.You'll need it.





	1. I Obliterate My Personal Timeline

It was the three year anniversary of the Battle of Manhattan. The hunters of Artemis were staying over, and there were some speeches and ceremonies planned during dinner, but other than that, it was just a normal camp day. A few broken legs here, a cut-throat game of capture the flag there, nothing too special. That is, until _it_ happened. There I was, trying my best not to impale someone, when everything stopped. The arrow that had been an inch away from sending a poor Demeter kid to the Big House froze in midair. The swords clashing and the rumble of the climbing wall went silent.

 

“Hey kid!”

 

 _Almost_ silent. I turned around, already drawing riptide, to face the voice. _No way. No freaking way. This is not happening. I’ll close my eyes, count to three, and wake up. This will all have been some weird totally-not-prophetic dream._

 

I closed my eyes and counted to three. I did not wake up. He smiled.

 

“Luke.”

 

“Great, it worked. I wasn’t sure if it would. Anyways, I don’t know how much time I have here, so don’t interrupt me.” He glared at me when I opened my mouth, then continued. “Turns out when our dear relative was sent to Tartarus, his power didn’t go with him. It stayed with me instead. And now I have the power to control time. Another fun fact: the fates can’t deny the dead soul of prophecy’s hero. Soooo, I’m sending you back in time. Well, I’m sending your _soul_ back in time. It will take over the body of your past self.

 

“Your quest, should you choose to accept it,” he suddenly got very serious, “save them. As many as you can. Save everyone from the war who didn’t deserve to die. Bianca, Ethan, Charlie, Silena. Everyone you can. The only rule,” I was kind of weirded out by how intense he looked, “you can’t let anyone know until I die. Not even Annabeth or Grover. The fates will take away your memories from your future if they find out. Once I die, the events become locked in place, along with your memories. If you don’t accept, then time will restart, and you will forget this ever happened. Can you do this?” He finally stopped and looked at me, waiting for an answer. Out of all the questions I had only one managed to blurt out.

 

“What about you?”

 

He looked out to the volleyball courts, where I was pretty sure Annabeth and Thalia were. “I can’t be saved. My death ties it all together and keeps the Fates from interfering. Kronos can’t be defeated without it. It has to happen. Can you do this?” He looked at me, his eyes burning hotter than Ares’.

 

A chance to save all my friends? No question. “Yes.”

 

Luke’s shoulders slumped in relief, and and for the first time I could remember, a real smile appeared on his face.

 

He straightened up, and started chanting in Greek. For once my brain didn’t translate. I started to feel lighter, like gravity had gone and taken a vacation, but my body stayed rooted to the ground. My vision faded out. Just before everything went black, I heard him speak directly into my ears.

 

“Oh, and I almost forgot. Do me a favor. When you see Luke on the other side, kick his ass for me.”


	2. I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom (Again)

In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting this. I thought I would have woken up in my bed back home, or at Yancy. Before my life went up in flames. Not standing inside the Hermes cabin (which I’m pretty sure a fire marshall would have something to say about) staring at Luke, of all people. I thought I’d at least have some time to myself to get a grip on reality, or whatever stood for it now. I guess it made some weird sort of sense. If it all ended with Luke, it might as well start with him. I realized I’d been staring at him like an idiot and tried to remember what I’d said the first time around. Luckily, Annabeth saved me.

 

“This is Luke. He’s your counselor, for now.” Looking at her now, I definitely recognized a hint of a blush. Go figure. I said the first words that seemed like something 12-year-old Percy might say.

 

“Where did you get your scar?” Stupid,  _ stupid.  _ Note to self: practice self-impersonation at some point. Seeing the anger from just that, it’s a wonder nobody saw his betrayal earlier. 

 

“A quest,” he answered tersely. “Since you’re undetermined, you’ll be staying with the Hermes cabin until you’re claimed.”

 

“ _ If _ you’re claimed,” some kid in the back yelled. All the other campers laughed. Apparently some things still happen. As Annabeth started dragging me away, I froze the air molecules into a thin layer of ice under the kid who yelled. I vaguely recalled he turned out to be a child of Nemesis. 

 

After we were out of hearing range of the screams, Annabeth said, “Right, you have got to do better than that.”

 

“What did I do?” I asked innocently.

 

“You can’t just ask people where their scars are from. I can’t believe I thought you were the one.” She rolled her eyes.

 

“It’s not like I said it was ugly. All I did was ask where it was from.” I mean, it’s true!

 

“A lot of campers have bad pasts that are hard to talk about. You don’t ask them about it.” That’s it. I have to change  _ something _ , for gods’ sakes.

 

“Bad pasts like never being claimed? Bad pasts like their godly parent not being  _ important _ enough to earn a cabin? I may not have heard about the gods until today, but I still know what it feels like to wonder if your parent even knows you exist. Don’t tell me you never felt like that.” Whoomp, there it is. All the anger at the Gods I had piled up over the years was now being released in a spectacular show of word vomit.  

 

Annabeth opened her mouth in denial, then closed it. “There are ancient laws that keep our godly parent from talking with us. They can’t go against the fates,” she finally said.

 

I snorted. “Just because there’s ancient laws doesn’t mean they can’t at least claim you.” 

 

Before she could respond, a very familiar voice yelled out, “Well, a newbie!” Wonderful. Clarisse. Though we were were fine in the future,  _ that _ reset button had clearly been pressed. I was yanked from my thoughts when Clarisse asked me a question. 

 

“Who’s this little runt?” She was glaring at me like I had dissed her dad. To be fair, I had, just not yet. 

 

I answered before Annabeth could. “Percy Jackson. Let me guess, daughter of Ares?” Annabeth looked at me, surprised. I shrugged. “The smell gave it away.”

 

“That’s it, prissy-”

 

“Percy.”

 

“-I’m giving you the initiation.” With that, she grabbed my neck and started dragging me to the girls bathroom. I struggled just enough to make it look like a scrawny kid with no training trying to fight. (I didn’t have to try very hard. If only my muscles and reflexes had been brought back as well.) I would only have so many times with my powers before I would be expected to control them, why not have some fun while I still could. Only this time I would be having a lot more fun. I started cranking down the temperature of the water to ice cold. Now I just had to wait for the perfect moment. As Clarisse slammed open the bathroom door and pulled me to a stall, I saw Annabeth out of the corner of my eye. Right, got to remember her. My head was pushed down into the toilet. Now! 

The familiar pull in my stomach appeared, and everything happened at once. The shower heads exploded, the contents of the toilets flew out of the stalls, and the faucet dials popped clean off. All of the freezing water in the room hit Clarisse and her friends, blasting them out of the building. Man, that felt good. The only dry spots in the room were me and Annabeth. Looking at myself then, I was honestly surprised nobody thought I was a son of Poseidon earlier. It seemed blatantly obvious in hindsight. 

 

“So,” I intelligently said.

 

“You,” Annabeth pointed at me, “Are on my team for capture the flag.”

 


End file.
